1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to virtual environment technologies, specifically to advertising in virtual environments based on crowd statistics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, website operators frequently target ads toward individual users. For example, keywords entered into a search engine may be used to select an advertisement, or an advertisement may be selected based on personal information that a website collects while a users interact with that website.
However, in interactive three dimensional (3D) environments users are no longer isolated from one another. Individual users may gather in virtual locations and communicate with one another. For example, each individual user inside a virtual environment may be represented in the form of an avatar. An avatar is a graphical representation of a user within a virtual environment. Crowds of avatars may gather at a location within a virtual environment. Being able to view other avatars in a virtual location fosters social networking. For example, user A could click on user B's avatar to start an instant message conversation between user A and user B. Communications such as this could be useful for advertisers because communication about an advertisement increases the effectiveness of the advertisement.